Petition Calls for Removal of Former Frat President From UTD

Students at a North Texas university have launched on online petition calling for the former Baylor University fraternity president accused of raping another student to removed from their campus. (Published Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018)

The University of Texas at Dallas says an unnamed student attending classes at UTD will not participate in graduation or be allowed back on campus after students and faculty shared their concern over the student's presence on campus.

While UTD did not name the student outright, students at the university recently launched a petition calling for 23-year-old Jacob Walter Anderson, a current UTD student and former Baylor University fraternity president accused of repeatedly raping a 19-year-old student at a fraternity party in Waco in 2016, to be removed from their campus.

Anderson, who was initially indicted on four sexual assault charges, agreed to a plea deal in which he pleaded no contest to unlawful restraint and would then receive three years deferred probation, seek counseling and pay a $400 fine. There was no action taken on the sex assault charges and Anderson will not have to register as a sex offender.

In the statement from UTD President Richard C. Benson, UTD said they admitted a student two years ago without knowing their legal history and that based on recent court action that student will not participate in upcoming commencement activities, be allowed on campus or attend post graduate classes at the school.

Anderson was expelled from Baylor after a university investigation and, according to The Dallas Morning News, was completing his finance degree at UTD where he was slated to graduate next week from the university's Naveen Jindal School of Management.

Kelsey Castro, a student at UTD, created a MoveOn.org petition Tuesday calling for the university to help protect students "from predators like Anderson" at its Richardson campus. The UTD petition has more than 21,500 signatures as of Wednesday evening.

Judge Approves Plea Deal for Ex-Frat Chief Accused of Rape

Jacob Anderson, 23, is accused of drugging and raping a woman repeatedly at a frat party in 2016.

(Published Monday, Dec. 10, 2018)

Meanwhile, attorneys for Anderson, Mark Daniel and Tim Moore, said that a statement in a Waco court Monday by the woman who accused Anderson was "riddled with distortions and misrepresentations." They said people at a fraternity party where she said Anderson assaulted her witnessed them "kissing passionately." They also said her claim that she was choked was "absolutely contrary" to evidence.

The UTD petition is the second created in the wake of the trial. A former Baylor student, Erin Albin, created an online petition opposing the plea deal signed by Judge Ralph Strother that allowed Anderson to avoid jail or being listed as a sex offender -- as of this writing that petition has more than 116,000 signatures.